Survivalist Bear Grylls recently shared some of his views on Christianity, saying he believes that the modern Western church is a far cry from what Jesus would want it to be.

“I think Jesus would really struggle with 99% of churches nowadays,” said Grylls in an interview with The Christian Post. “Our job in life is to stay close to Christ and drop the religious, drop the fluff, drop the church if you need to because that means so many different things to different people anyway. Keep the bit of church which is about community and friends and honesty and faith and love. All the masks, performances, music and worship bands and all of that sort of stuff—I don’t think Christ would recognize a lot of that.”

Bear Grylls: Choose Spiritual Connection Over Religion

Bear Grylls is a best-selling author probably best-known for the show, “Man vs. Wild.” He is a former member of the British Special Forces and at age 23 summited Mount Everest not long after breaking his back in a skydiving accident.

In addition to “Man vs. Wild,” Grylls has participated in other survival focused shows, such as “Escape from Hell,” “The Island,” and “Running Wild with Bear Grylls.” His books include “Soul Fuel: A Daily Devotional,” “Never Give Up: My Life in the Wild,” and his latest, “Mind Fuel: Simple Ways to Build Mental Resilience Every Day.”

Grylls is also a Christian who speaks openly about his faith. In a 2017 article in GQ magazine, he wrote:

For me, having a Christian faith can be difficult to articulate. It’s like describing ice cream or swimming—it has to be tried to be felt. But, in a nutshell, my faith tells me that I am known, that I am secure and that I am loved—regardless of the storms I may find myself in from time to time, regardless of how often I fall and fail.

Speaking at the Global Leadership Summit in 2019, Grylls said his faith is like a backbone for him and is something that he relies on every day. He acknowledged there have been many times he has tried to live his life without God. But even though he has survived living that way, he has realized that he needs Christ’s presence to be complete and fully alive.

In the GQ article, Grylls differentiated faith from religion. “I meet so many people who don’t want ‘religion,’ as such,” he said. “I get it. I feel the same. And, in fact, so did Jesus, the heart of all Christian faith. Faith and religion are not the same thing.” He continues, “The Jesus I read about in the Bible was fun, free and wild. He loved a party and he always hung out with the nonreligious folk. The only people he ever got angry with were the overly religious types.”

Grylls made this same distinction when speaking to The Christian Post.  “Look at Jesus with his band of guys who he shared everything with, the good, the bad and the struggles,” he said. “They were always brutally honest. They were unchurched; they weren’t smiley and nice. It was raw, it was real, it was painful, it was honest, it was angry, it was jealous, it was all of these things. But it was spoken and it was shared and there was an incredible community, and in a way, that is church.”

The survivalist emphasized the necessity of having an authentic spirituality and connecting with God, in contrast to what he often sees in churches, which is people concealing their doubts and their inner struggles.

“We’re so conditioned to only talk about the good stuff when it’s working,” said Grylls. “Probably most of the people in the congregation have substance abuse, and probably most of their congregations struggle with porn and all that sort of stuff. What a relief it is when a pastor can stand up and go, ‘Welcome to the hospital, folks. Here we go. I’m just standing alongside you on the road, failing our way through, but reaching out of desperation for life and love and redemption. Let’s look outwards, and love other people, and we’re in it together.’”